


Dragonflies on the Darkest Skies (Fly Away Remix)

by coricomile



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-02 05:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd always been able to fix Ryan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragonflies on the Darkest Skies (Fly Away Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seratonation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seratonation/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Not the Ordinary Type](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/7349) by seratonation. 



The thing Spencer remembers is how hot everything was. The air around him, the sheets over his legs, Ryan in bed with him sweating and shaking. He'd felt like he was going to melt into his mattress. Ryan pressed into him, all hands and knees and elbows, skin like a furnace.

“Ryan," Spencer mumbled, pushing at the weight trapping him to the bed. He'd heard the heavy tumble of Ryan falling in through the window through his sleep, familiar enough to be unalarming. 

“Spence," Ryan whispered back. His voice shook, thick. A little raw. Spencer made himself wake up, thoughts of bruises on Ryan's skin making his heart clench and his lungs ache. Before Ryan, he had been a heavy sleeper. Before Ryan, a lot of things had been different. "Spence something is wrong.” 

“What is it?” Spencer asked. He breathed slowly through his mouth, eyes straining to adjust in the dark. He could see the sweat at Ryan's temples, could feel it against his own skin. 

“I think something’s happening.” Ryan jerked, knee crashing into Spencer's thigh. Spencer hissed out a low curse, trying to pull Ryan closer to him. Spencer could feel his own sweat starting up under his shirt, slick against his belly and chest, almost unbearable in the places where Ryan was touching him.

In sixth grade, Ryan had taken some expired sleeping pills. He walked the six blocks to Spencer's house, throwing up on the sidewalk at least twice. Spencer had heard his pathetic moans before he'd seen Ryan through the darkness. He'd never been good about taking care of himself. Spencer tried not to think of the handful of things Ryan could have done to hurt himself. 

“My back, my shoulders-" Ryan squeezed his eyes shut, curling in on his stomach. "My skin. It hurts Spence, it hurts so much.”

Spencer swallowed down the nervous pulse in his throat and made Ryan sit up. He was shivering, shaking, whining low and thin under his breath. 

“Let me see,” Spencer said, already reaching for the hem of Ryan's shirt. It was soaked through, damp against Spencer's fingers as he slid it up and away. 

Spencer knew every inch of Ryan's skin from forehead to ankles. Every scar was mapped out in the back of his mind, every freckle a landmark. He trailed a hand over the planes of Ryan's back gently, breath hiccuping when Ryan winced.

There was something wrong with his shoulder blades. Even in the darkness of his room, Spencer could make out the strange shape of them. He put one hand on Ryan's side, trying to hang onto his slick skin, and reached up to press at the deformation. The lump moves under his fingers. 

"Fuck," Spencer breathed out. The sound was buried under Ryan's pathetic whine. 

Spencer leaned in closer, hand tightening on Ryan's side in an attempt to keep him still. When he squinted, he could see something moving under Ryan's skin. Spencer swallowed down thoughts of parasites and aliens and monsters taking over and made himself press at the bottom of the wriggling bumps. 

“There’s, like, two lumps, Ry,” Spencer said. There was no puncture mark near either one of them, no signs of something burrowing its way inside. The one on the left was starting to bruise, the redness turning dark. Their movements are almost visible, twitching. “They’re moving.”

Ryan hunched further into himself. It made the bumps stick out, round and high on his shoulder blades. They were too even to be from falling or hitting the wall, too big to be from sleeping wrong.

“What are they?” Ryan asked. He sounded sick. Spencer wanted to wrap him up, fix it. He'd always fixed Ryan. 

“I don’t know,” Spencer said weakly. He thought about his mother's heating pad in the bathroom, about the icepack in the freezer. He wasn't sure which one would help, if anything would help, but he had to try something because Ryan was panting and close to tears, and Ryan never cried. “It'll be ok, just let me go and get-”

“Don’t leave,” Ryan said, voice choked out. He grabbed weakly at Spencer's hand, fingers digging in. "Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t,” Spencer said after a moment. He reluctantly laid at Ryan's side, one arm curling around his stomach. "It'll be okay."

Spencer tried to slow his breathing, tried to match it to the rough rise and fall of Ryan's chest. He felt the way Ryan slumped when he finally passed out. From pain or exhaustion Spencer couldn't tell.

For the rest of the night he fought his own exhaustion, watching Ryan twitch in his sleep. Both of the lumps on his shoulders grew, their movements slow but unmistakable. Spencer thought about calling for his mom- about calling an _ambulance_ \- but he made himself stay still and watchful. 

(Years later, he'll admit that he was too afraid to move, too afraid that something horrible would happen if he left Ryan for even a second.)

Some time before dawn, right before the light broke over the horizon, the skin on Ryan's left shoulder tore open. It split slow and even like a seam ripping, blood trailing down his back in tiny trails. Fear coiled up in Spencer's stomach, sick and churning.

He watched as something slick and pointed wriggled its way out of the tear, widening it. Ryan didn't move at all. The right side followed close after, breaking open and crawling out of him. Parasites. Aliens. It didn't matter what it was, because it might have already killed Ryan, and Spencer couldn't move away.

The things growing out of Ryan twitched against his back slowly, settling in. When they didn't attack, Spencer reached a timid hand towards the one closest to him. It was- He could-

It was a wing.

Against his better judgement, Spencer wiped at it with his quilt gingerly, clearing the blood away. Underneath the grime, he could see it. Feathers. Wings like a fresh born chicken's, wet and trying to stretch against the weight.  
Spencer laughed. All of this drama, all of this fear, and Ryan turns into a giant fucking chicken. Spencer gripped Ryan's side, too afraid of crushing his wings to actually hold him, and laughed and laughed and tried not to cry from relief. 

He watched the wings dry slowly, stretching their feathers like independent beings. He could feel Ryan's body loosen up breath by breath, the pain obviously lessened. He wondered what would happen next, how they would explain this.

(Years later they meet Pete and he changes their lives again, and things get better. It doesn't change the nightmares Spencer has about things being different, about the terrible things that could have happened instead.)

What Spencer remembers most is the sunlight on Ryan's back, making shadows on his skin, his wings spreading apart for real for the very first time.


End file.
